John Phelps’s portfolio

OUR share tips took a relaxed view of the political jousting over a new Scottish independence poll and the continuing Brexit wrangling to advance across a broad front last week.

Share-price gainers outnumbered fallers by a healthy majority of approaching two to one with the total value of our four investment portfolios recording a rise of almost one per cent when we carried out our usual review of progress on Wednesday morning.

Only the latest 2017 list disappointed with a 0.6 per cent slippage as a result of a sharp fall in the price of the ambitious property group SEGRO when it announced it was issuing new shares to pay for a parcel of warehouses at Heathrow airport.

We have yet to build up enough cash reserves in this portfolio to buy our entitlement to the cheap shares issued in the fundraising but sold our “rights” to reduce the cost of our notional investment.

Even so, its value was down by a hefty five per cent which wiped out the effects of further gains made by flavouring and scents group Treatt and a useful recovery by Scottish power plant hirer Aggreko after its recent slide.

In contrast, the 2014 selections continued their recent good run with their total value up two per cent over the week while the 2015 and 2016 portfolios sported gains of one per cent and 1.6 per cent respectively.

Some of the biggest rises were seen in shares which have underperformed in recent weeks with British Polythene Industries owner RPC staging a rebound after a sell-off following its fundraising issue and supermarkets Sainsbury’s and Morrisons perking up.

Others such as Treatt and aggregates group Breedon continued to push to new peak levels.

But there were a few losers with Scottish energy supplier SSE falling out of favour when it announced a 14.9 per cent hike in electricity prices from April 28.